


legends are told (some turn to dust and to gold)

by MyHeartWontGoOn



Category: The Martian - All Media Types
Genre: dialogue only, mark is an emotional nerd, the human race as a whole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-30 00:01:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6399487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyHeartWontGoOn/pseuds/MyHeartWontGoOn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark Watney makes a speech and it's a little bit emotional.</p>
            </blockquote>





	legends are told (some turn to dust and to gold)

**Author's Note:**

> ok I'm not sure if Johannessens name is spelt right and my iPad is a pain in the arse 
> 
> spot the music references ! 
> 
> hasn't been betad so point out any errors, please?

"So I'm sure you've all got a lot of questions now that I'm back, from outer space. There's everything ranging from 'what was it like on Mars?' to 'what was your underwear situation like?'

When I woke up upon Mars, on Sol 7, a hole in my suit and the MAV gone, I'm not going to lie, I was afraid. God, I was fucking _petrified_. I was alone, injured and with no way to immediately contact NASA or the Hermes. I didn't think I was going to get home. I didn't think I was going to make it back to Earth, to my family, to my friends, to even those who hated me. I missed them, even if I shouldn't really have.

Being there, so alone, for so long, it's terrifying. The thing is, you do simulations of what it's like to spend a long period alone on Earth. Nothing compares to being the only human on another planet. If something goes disastrously wrong in a sim, they can take you out, get you to a hospital or whatever pretty damn quickly. On Mars? It's you and you alone. It's thinking and fending for yourself, long and short term - you may be super hungry right now and want two ration packs, but you're going to starve in several months if you do eat it.

Now, there's this song, that when I got to the Hermes and I'd slept and been mended a little, that came to my head. Those of you that are my sort of era, it will probably ring a bell. And after months of Disco music it's a miracle I managed to recall anything else. It struck a chord with me that it never really had before.

_'I'm coming home,_  
I'm coming home,  
tell the world I'm coming home,  
let the rain wash away all the pain of yesterday'

I-I'm sure that you get why that struck a chord with me.

It wasn't all doom and gloom. We had our many shining moments out there. On the way home, quite soon into the journey when it hadn't quite sunk in I was on my way home, I made the _fatal_ error of muttering 'Is this real life?' at the dinner table.

Beck heard me, and slightly louder said 'Or is this just fantasy?'

Johannessen follows this up with 'caught in a landslide, no escape from reality'

Martinez joins in here too with 'open your eyes, look up to the sky and see'

So there's Beck, Johannessen, Martinez and I singing along to it, even Commander Lewis joins in when it gets to 'I see a little silhouetto of a man' and somehow, Vogel, the cheeky git, has managed to capture nearly the entire song on video. Expect that one to be released sometime soon. It's a classic.

Before I start getting emotional in a minute, the only potato I am eating from this day forward, are fries and chips.

Now, I want to say thank you. To everyone who took part in bringing me home, from a tweet, a Facebook post, a 50p donation to everyone at NASA, at JPL, to my teammates. To everyone who supported me getting home, I cannot ever be thankful enough for what you've done for me.

I'm quoting this from my logs next, because I phrased this then better than I ever could now.

_'The cost for my survival must have been hundreds of millions of dollars. All to save one dorky botanist. Why bother?_

_Well, I know part of the answer to that. Partly, because of what I represent - progress, science and the interplanetary future we've always dreamed of for centuries. But really, you all did it because every human being has the basic instinct to help each other out. It might not always seem that way sometimes, but it's true._

_If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a search. If a train crashes, people will line up to give blood. If an earthquake levels a city, people all over the world will send emergency supplies. This is so fundamentally human it's found in every culture without exception. Yes, there are assholes who just don't care, but they're massively outnumbered by the people who do. And because of that, I had billions of people on my side.'_

When I mentioned those tragedies, I bet you all thought of different ones, some would have affected you or your families personally. Some, wouldn't have affected you at all. But you cared, and you donated, and you volunteered and you helped.

#BRINGHIMHOME, I think, will never fail to make me emotional. It's about me, yes, but there's millions and millions of tweets, pictures, art, parades, petitions and so many other things that were involved in that. Your hard work, means I'm stood here today. I've seen a few of the compilation videos of the world reacting to my death, my 'he's not dead', to the Iris probe failing, and ultimately to my rescue. Heartwarming and tear jerking at the same time.

Thank you for listening, and thank you for bringing me home."

**Author's Note:**

> big wedge of italics at the end is virtually word for word from the book and I own none of it .


End file.
